my brother is a marine and I HATE that he is doing this. i love him so much but he is also my enemy. i am ashamed of him, for being someone who kills.

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Iman says she hates Americans. Can you blame her? I want George Bush to stand -- no, kneel before all the Imans whose lives have been destroyed because of his lies, and beg -- implore forgiveness. I want this shameful spawn impeached.

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This is a TRUELeft issue. And powerfully done. Use of the imagery of Youth and Tragedy. Powerful. Now put that in front of middle America, and this war is OVER.

Now do the same thing for the progressive taxation-universal healthcare issue.

But the main thing is that you have to get these sorts of things into the brains of enough Americans, or failing that,
the RIGHT Americans (hint--in 2006, think OH-PA-FL).

THAT is real leftism!

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Great article. But the piece CNN has been airing repeatedly is much better. It actually shows the girl saying she didn't go to school that day because she and the others were waiting for the bomb to go off.

As far as I am concerned everyone that knew that bomb was going to go off and stayed in their homes that morning is just as guilty as the people that planted it there and killed a brave US Marine.

Let Allah sort it out.

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Put automatic weapons in the hands of angry, impressionable young men, indoctrinate them into death and destruction for a cause and then drop them off in a hostile environment where there are lots of civilians.

Please remember that these young Marines are children. Remember that most of the 'insurgents' that they are fighting are children.

These children, on both sides, should be at home, learning to love and grow old. They should definitely not be facing each other with the deadliest of weapons at the behest of the old and/or wealthy and/or religious and/or power mad.

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In WWI, German soldiers in Belgium ripped of the arms of toddlers and gleefully bayonetted babies.

This aroused the righteous anger of so many, soldiers and civlians, who might have been ambivalent about WWI, which seemed (and seems) little more than an insane bloodbath for some ridiculous people's ridiculous disputes and notions of glory.

There was, understandably, a problem getting people to support what seemed (and seems to this day) a patently ridiculous war. (Does anyone know what they were fighting about, still?)

But once the Germans started slaughtering babies like that, it was clear there were creatures of boundless evil that needed to be destroyed.

It was such an effective story that it was recycled. When Hill and Knowlton had the difficult job of getting the American government and public to support a war to restore one corrupt and brutal dictatorship (Kuwait) that had been attacked by another (Iraq)? Hmmm... how to do that? Ah, yes, the babies story.

They got a sweet Kuwati girl to tearfully relate her experience of witnessing babies thrown out of incubators by the Iraqis and left to die on the cold floor.

By, god! Those Iraqis are creatures of boundless evil and must be stopped.

Both the babies stories were made up. The sweet Kuwati girl turned out to be member of the Kuwati royal family dictatorship (which we fought to restore - so much for the ideals of freedom and democracy) who's act had been carefully rehearsed by Hill and Knowlton (who never got in any trouble for so brazenly lying to Congress).

Even though they weren't even true, those little examples, involving not so many victims, had elements that made them so very effective, like a tearful young girl describing horror at the hands of foreign troops.

So, how much more effective will this be, given that not only does it have those powerful elements, but this time is almost certainly true?

And how much worse is the US military making it by still trying to weasel? (Oh, it was just shrapnel... ah, it was crossfire... um...) If the whole world could hate the Huns or the Iraqis for fabricated massacres, and worldwide there's so already much opposition to this adventure, how powerful will this be?

Eighty-percent of Iraqis already say they want the US military to leave (so much for the idea of democracy), and for that reason consider the insurgency more of a legitimate resistance than terrorism. How would we feel in the US under similar circumstances (other country helps overthrow our government to install dictator; their dictator gets uppity so the bomb us, a lot, for ten years; then they invade and occupy us)?

Do you think, after this, the number of Iraqis who like the Americans being there will go up?

And... do you think they'll be more or less likely to tip off the US forces if they know about a bomb? How many Iraqis who might otherwise have tried to see the US soldiers in the best light, might have tried to help, are going to feel nothing but anger, hatred? How would we react if this happened in Wichita?

Well, don't despair. After all, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are on the job. They'll work it out. I'm sure they've got a plan already.


(And as for the lunatic notion that somehow they deserved it, I've heard this all the time - even that, for example, Japanese civilians deserved Nagasaki because "they" were at war with "us". Think about what, by that insane logic, we would deserve - would it be OK to retaliate for this massacre in your hometown? Hard to imagine that there are actually people who can believe children could deserve...

Well, I guess I won't fall down the rabbit hole of arguing with the mentally ill. But don't make that assertion; no one wants to live in that kind of world.)

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The massive broadcasting of the massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians--"worse than Abu Ghraib"--and of the ensuing cover-up, will threaten the will to win the Iraq War like nothing else before, because TV diffusion of violent images has the power to neutralize the legitimacy of the US government and its Army.


Now my question is: Since TV is part of the full-spectrum force, how will the Military use it to neutralize the disastrous effect of the massacres' images?

Let's try to answer it TOGHETER at the http://magmareport.Net

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Sorry for the lost lives, but…

What we have now is a loose/loose situation for all Iraqis. “Know and Tell” face death from terror from your own people. “Know and Don’t Tell” and face death from the military who patrol the streets. Ultimately the terrorists will stop issuing warnings to their own people and kill them along with their targets. We already know from other terrorist ridden parts of the world that they do not care.

If people would just think globally and in terms of building a modern democracy that actually respects global human rights!!! Bush and Blair are action figures in a global chess game. People that cannot envision the large scheme must of course discuss all the seemingly stupid basic moves. While they can cause destruction to a certain degree they just serve the higher purpose of global peace.

I would love to be able to choose to live in any culture anywhere in the world. This does not include importing my lazy living standards of course, but it does include being able to express what I think w/o being killed. However, as long as educated native people have to flee their home to live a free life something is very wrong. Ever read Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis? A graphic “graphic” and eye-opening YA novel!!!

So, do I do call 15 innocent lives lost a tragic incident? Absolutely, but I also call it a necessary sacrifice, just like loosing my queen to win. We have now an absolutely brilliant situation where every Iraqi has to deal with her, sorry, I meant “his” (women have no rights to decide anything unless a constitution is passed) own conscience on a personal day to day basis.

I bet you, next time s.o. knows they will seriously consider taking their chances with the military or local police. But I also bet that innocent civilians will be killed by their own people (the terrorists) for telling and it will be staged as an American responsibility. And yes, CNN will buy the story and blurt it all over the world in the same manner.

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Just a question here - is there EVER a time when soldiers should stand up and say, "This is wrong and I won't be a part of it"?

Should soldiers refuse to be involved if they believe the conflict immoral?

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BBC website report about another suspected multiple homicide by US troops in Iraq in March (US claimed it was a regular firefight, Iraqi police claimed it was homicide). Caveat--the video came from an anti-American Sunni group but BBC checked it against other images of that scene and considers it genuine.

Also if true, I have to wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg.

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I'm a little shocked by the inhumanity of this discussion. Are people actually saying it's justifiable to slaughter entire families in cases where someone might have had foreknowledge of an attack?

Let's go further, let's say someone in the house was a bona-fide insurgents. If, say, it was the Freemen in Montana, would we support the FBI going in an shooting everyone, even infants, even neighbors and the neighbors' children who might possibly have known something about their activities?

(And, does that mean that if they're at war with us, it would be OK for them to come to our houses and kill our children, too? Just checking.)

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...is the ensuing coverup. Some major heads are going to roll, besides the troopers who did the shooting. Incidents such as these happen in all wars. These young brave men are exhausted beyond belief, taking fire daily, dodging IED's. And all for what? That is the outrageous part. No clear mission, no real reason to be there at all. These men should be home yesterday.

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....insane and so are the people that are waging war. Those are the criminals.

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That's what soldiers are for: killing people. If you don't want to kill people you shouldn't be a soldier. Modern wars kill more civilians than soldiers so a lot of civilians are killed in any modern war. When the Bushies started the Iraq war they knew for sure that a lot of civilians would be killed. The psuedo-religious Bushies are all guilty of mass murder. So for them to pretend that they have a reverence for life is total jackass hypocrisy. Right to life people in the white house are really right to kill people who commit mass murder for greed and oil. IMPEACH ALL THE JACKASSES.

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To President Bush, June 2, 2006

As we fast approach July 4th in which this country celebrates not only our independence from a tyrannical rule under the crown, we also celebrate being American. Having just viewed an ITV news video in which a ten year old girl whose name is Iman Walid chronicled the massacre that took her family members in Haditha: I want to ask you just how can we celebrate being Americans knowing we took these innocent lives? Do we still attend parades, picnics and wave the American flag? Speaking of the American flag, I have made it a personal pledge not to pledge allegiance to it until you are long gone. I cannot see for the life of me just how Americans can do this after occupying an innocent country that took the lives of Iman’s family as well as countless more. When Iman Walid stated that she “hated Americans” that will be your very legacy, President Bush. Thanks for making the rest of the world hate us as well.

As far as I am concerned while those Marines must face justice, the one who is truly guilty of taking this ten year old girl’s family is you, President Bush. As their Commander in Chief you are responsible for taking her family from her since you chose to lie about our reason for invading her country. This ten year old girl should have been doing what most ten year old girl’s do and that is to dream of a better future instead of witnessing the horrors of her family being taken away from her. How could you do that to a little girl, President Bush? Where is your so called Christianity? If you think for one moment that Christ would condone this heinous act, think again. If you think that you are getting into Heaven, think again. May you burn in Hell for all eternity for these war crimes.

Thanks for making me ashamed of being an American knowing that her family’s blood is on my hands when I screamed out with millions more of why we must not invade this country. But you chose not to listen to us in your lust for power and greed. If I do celebrate July 4th, it will be only in remembrance of a country long gone. America died when you stole the office of President of the United States back in 2000, President Bush and that will be your legacy as well.

Mary MacElveen

This letter will go out over the Internet

Alternet Article that Leads to ITV News Video: Iraqi Girl Tells of U.S. Attack in Haditha

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Let's not forget that the Democrats in Congress by an overwhelming majority continue voting to fund the war. Legally, if you provide money to someone in the knowledge that they will use at least some of that money for a criminal act, you are criminally liable as well. As a result, Congressional Democrats, like the administration, are also guilty for the massacre at Haditha.

Also, remember that in 2002 the majority of Democratic Senators and both the House and Senate leadership voted to authorize the invasion and, like the Bush administration, lied about Iraq still having WMDs.

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my soul bleeds from the sins of our criminal leaders! they have made killers of our sons and daughters!they have made killers of the iraqi sons and daughters!

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We know what's best for Iraq. They do not get to choose any form of government unless it is the neo-con vision of Democracy/Capitalism. If we have to kill every goddam one of them to do it -- We will give the Iraqi's "The Gift" of Democracy.

What a crock of horseshit THAT is...

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The sooner George W. Bush is impeached, and his administration is dismantled, the sooner the country can get about the tasks of rebuilding and healing from the effects of: corruption, runaway greed, stubborn arrogance, runaway national deficit, borrow and spend philosophy, violation of our Constitutional rights, and violation of our country's laws.

And, the sooner we can begin to rebuild and heal from the errors of lack of diplomacy and peaceful negotiation which has led us into an unwinable and unnecessary war, and has caused us to lose credibility and honor in the eyes of the world.

Let's all get active, and do all we can to make sure we vote representatives into office that will move to impeach, and that do not support this travesty called a "war on terror." No one wants to live with terror and evil, but this mistake of a war in Iraq is not the answer to our country's or our world's problems. It is, in fact, causing more problems than it is solving.

We are not being represented, or lead, in a good direction. So, we have the right, as citizens, to impeach. Its up to us. We must be the one's to move Congress. Congress cannot act on its own. The People must insist. We do not have to be ruled by a King, Emperor, or incompetent. Its time for the People to act, legally, and along those lines, in our own defense against our present rulers who are literally causing our ruin.

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What an ugly stain this massacre and subsequent cover up is on the this country and the record of the US Marines. But there is another side to this, lest we forget, killing is what they're trained to do. When will this A-hole in the White House and those complicit in his war crimes realize that trained warriors are not an effective (or even humane) police force. I suppose that such notions never made in into the "strategic plan" for an occupied Iraq. Too busy painting opponents as terrorist-symp's. This country will live in shame for this ugly occupation for many years to come.

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When this story broke, the first thing I said was: "Well what a surprise. We promote hate and fear against people of color, we invade their country, we demonize Muslims and Iraqis as a group - and then act surprised when people act on their hate and fear." Our government and mainstream media have spent 5 years actively engaging in hate- and fear-mongering. Too many people of this country have willfully bought into it. Our government justifies the invasion of this country that was NOT responsible for the tragedy of 911 and convinced others to join in the fight. They have delivered propaganda to Americans via t.v., movies, newspapers, internet, etc. that says Iraqi's are bad, Muslims hate us, and we have to protect ourselves using any means necessary. The military IS the government. They are not separate entities folks. The military serves at the whim of the President and those he commands. Our elected officials are equally to blame because they have as a majority voted for the invasion, to continue the invasion, and to fund the ongoing ivasion.
Whose job is it to stop this mess? For whom do we wait? What is our role in this "democracy" we are supposedly fighting to defend? Where the hell does it stop?????
It stops with us.
We the people - those who continue to vote for the elected officials who support the largest war crime ever conducted (which is how I see the invasion), have to do something. We the people of this country need to take our role as voters and constituents of the elected officials seriously and begin making demands that sound like this: If you don't stop this, we will NOT vote for you again! And then follow through. We need to call, write, e-mail, visit the Senators and Representatives from our State and demand that they stand the fuck up - no matter their party.
Remember we (this country) are building and supporting ongoing terrorism through our continued actions of war against middle eastern countries. This "War on Iraq" is an act of terrorism! This thing that happened makes more and more people hate us. Just as we might blame a whole country for the actions of a hand full of terrorists, so do the people in Iraq blame all Americans for the actions of a hand full of Marines.
We need to monitor our own language. It is NOT a war. It was an invasion and we continue to be the invaders. Don't buy into the language you are spoon fed. If you hear someone spreading hate, fear and blame - use your voice to dispute what they are saying.
I find I become more and more ashamed every day. I hate that, but I can deal with it a little bit better by doing my part - by using my voice, as is my personal and social responsibility.

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FYI: The other day ABC news aired a different video of a different Iraqi girl with a different story about the same killings in the same house. See 6/2/06 blog entry at http://www.justwartheory.com/editorial.html for links.

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Again Americans say how horrible it is for the troops.

If someone smart was leading the effort from the White House and the Pentagon would we feel better? If only 200 soldiers had died so far would we have no reason to complain?

It’s the same lament heard over the past thirty years despite almost two million dead Vietnamese. I've been in war zones. A child who has a gun pointed at her is in a far worse position than a soldier. A child has no training for this, young American soldiers do, and they’re armed, it's their bombs, tanks, rifles and snipers and you have a child in middle of some fundamentalist Islamic or a freedom fighting marine.

Just look at Afghanistan over the past few weeks. The numbers of dead Al Qaeda, Taliban and Civilians is much higher than American troops. American troops have more fire power.

An important part of American culture is riddled with war stories. Many war movies. They go from John Wayne flicks to Oliver Stone’s Platoon. I live in South Florida and every year we have the Air and Sea Show. One million people go out to the beach to cheer on the machines of war.

Americans go off generation after generation to kill and die. There has been a change because since Vietnam. But almost every ten years, another group of our young men go off to war. It seems to be a collective rite/right of passage.

How many of you have been at war? Not as soldiers, who Americans glorify and feel less than, because civilians are a notch under soldiers because we don’t want to pay the price. How many of you have been in war as civilians, trying to rescue your children or mother from the rubble or from an angry mob of soldiers? If the answer is no maybe we can say that Bush is right, let’s get them before they come here.

I've seen soldiers in combat and I have seen fear and loathing and anger and the desire to kill. Why do Americans want to believe that our humanity is above and beyond that which is so human? Why do Americans need to believe that only a few bad apples, a few American soldiers, will get caught up in the needless killing?

Soldiers are human. My father went to the army. Three uncles went to the army, one was in the Korean War. But as humans soldiers can kill with no reason, with contempt for others and eventually get away with it because they are soldiers. I've had friends who went to Vietnam and despised the Vietnamese people.

We don’t question the bravery of men who decide to learn to kill. They are heralded as the best and the reason we are free. Wouldn’t it be honest to say that freedom has also come through the civil rights movement, and the development of technology to better assist the ill, isn’t it more honest to say that freedom was in the ideas of some of those who decided not to go to war. We mock their bravery, call them unpatriotic cowards.

Aren’t those who face ridicule, anger, even jail also brave for deciding to not go off and kill people “ who never called me a nigger”. I guess that if I decide to get trained to kill I know I can die in the killing. If I do it in the name of Allah or the name of Democracy does that ideal change the outcome? Don’t soldiers have an individual responsibility because of their decisions?

Yes we must hold W. Bush, and Bush I, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson Kennedy and the Corporations responsible for the lies, convenient truths and corruption that lead to our involvement in the last three wars. Don't forget Grenada and Panama.

But when hundreds of thousands of men, and now women become soldiers, when they choose to neglect what people, even right wingers like Chirac say, then how can we ignore their choices.

The war movement is a cultural creation and can be dismantled. I doubt the majority wants that to happen, much of US identity rests on this movement.

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I mean that question in all seriousness. I know it's probably not best to ask strangers over the Internet this question, but I don't really have anyone in real life I can talk this over with.

How can I, as someone who directly benefits from this war, a white male American citizen, continue to go on living after something like this has happened? The shame that goes with being a benefactor of actions like these is enough to make me no longer want to live. To be honest, I don't know why I haven't taken my own life yet. Maybe I should, I don't know. All I know is that the shame is overwhelming me. I can't go on with my daily life knowing I'm the benefactor of something like this.

I know the obvious solution is to take action, but I honestly don't know if I have the strength. I experience such suicidal urges every time something like this happens, and with each passing catastrophe, massacre, or crime against humanity committed in my name, my sanity and my will to live get eroded further. They're almost gone at this point.

All this is so overwhelming I don't know what to do. But I think the first thing I need to acquire in light of this is that I need some reason to live, some reason to keep on existing. Maybe someone here can offer some insight, I don't know. But this is happening to me far too often and too harshly for me to face this alone.

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I am ashamed that American children are having to serve and kill another race of children in a war that was not of our making in the first place. This is what happens when there is no leadership for the troops. In Vietnam in the late 1960's, I saw a lot of payback for buddies being killed. The mob mentality that takes over after losing friends to enemy insurgents is not something that is easily controlled.

Our children are directed to fight in a war by two of the lowest forms of pond scum in this country, the two draft dodging cowards who are in the White House today. But America has put them in office, either by vote or by looking the other way when the elections were stolen, but it falls on all of us Americans that these scumbags are in office in the first place.

Want to stop the atrocities? Take Bush and Cheney out of office by any means necessary and send them to prison where they deserve to finish out their wretched lives surrounded by people of their own kind.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/swindell05042006.html

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The American "culture" has a long-standing addiction to eroticised violence, getting more and more explicit even as the denial builds. It's so obvious, once you think about it - there's no point in even specifying how the imagery of torture and murder echo orgiastic experiences. There are so many levels of preparation leading to someone experiencing sexual pleasure from such imagery (not to mention pleasure from actually perpetrating such actions). Just think about it - can you think of some of the themes in American culture that encourage de-humanization of others and help bring about loss of the ability to see oneself as human unless one is in absolute control of the situation? Generation after generation, getting further and further from the wisdom of acceptance: of one's own power and limits, of others' place in the same beautiful and terrifying universe, of one's own mortaility and the preciousness of life. As a psychologist, I see it over and over again: identification with the aggressor: boy grows up under his father's cruel dominance, and internalizes contempt for himself as a powerless little sh--, and such feelings can only be expiated by projecting that contempt onto worthless victims; read: women, children, other religions, those who look different...

WE ARE IN SUCH DENIAL. Our guys just keep watching the blood sports and playing the video games - these don't create the tendency to be aroused as power is combined with blood and callousness and debasement of the "other", but they sure do underscore, reinforce, and basically teach that connection over and over. It's behavioral/sexual conditioning in its clearest form.

And a warning: never, ever try to get between an aroused man and his source of pleasure - the howling will be loud, and the reaction may even be dangerous. Freud said when you interpret a psychological link, it's like "spitting in his soup" - basically pointing out the obvious so it can no longer be denied (and enjoyed in ignorance).

The whole right wing fascist outrage over enforcement of standards, regulations, and "political correctness" hinges on this reaction: don't you f---ing dare to interfere with my arousal, and don't you dare point out that I'm getting off on debasing others. And don't tell me it's not gender-connected: it's no accident that the American fascists refer to the hated welfare state as "the nanny state". They see regulations and civility as the attempt of "the mother" to exert her influence; "Hey, my dad didnt' put up with that sh-- and neither will I!"

The American fascists remind me of Hitler's boy, Goebbels. When other Germans called the Nazis coarse, and a threat to the best in German culture, he said, "When I hear the word: 'culture', I reach for my gun." Reminds me of the street thugs who grab their dicks as a gesture of defiance and contempt. Ugh, sometimes the whole thing makes me feel sick.

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